Yeah. Don't read the comments for either video. Some pretty horrible things written.

Unfortunatley I already have, I can't help but wonder where does all this hatred comes from.
People there really came out of proporstions but I guess that's the internet (or at least I hope so..)
And back to our subject, I just read an article and Aga indeed said that she was dissapointed with the crowd and the Polish captain sent a report to the ITF or something like that, hopefully this will teach our crowd how to behave.

I don't really care for the atmosphere of these Fed/Davis cup type matches in general. But obviously the idea is to have some more playing options for tennis, as a team sport and crowd attraction.

But picture an NBA basketball game, how the crowd treats the opposing player at the free throw line. Can you imagine this in tennis -- jeering to distract while the 'opposing' player is serving? Really in these links it is to that point.

I see this behavior creeping into the Grand Slam events as well. I attended several days of the last US Open, and felt a little uncomfortable at some of the American players' matches. Nothing came close to these video links, but the crowds did get aggressively jingoistic at certain points. And the announcers and US tennis establishment seem to encourage it.

IT's just not my cup of tea, because tennis is at its heart a one-on-one sport. It can be very lonely out there not just playing against an opponent, but an entire stadium. j m o

"Whether Radwanska was referring to political demonstrations from the Israeli crowd in Eilat or differences with the home team after Poland's 2-1 victory over Israel was left unspecified, but there was no mistaking Radwanska's feelings.

"I was really disappointed," she said, when asked why Poland's post-match press conference in Israel had been so spectacularly brief.

"I didn't really expect something like this to happen on the tour, especially when a lot of teams were there and a lot of top players, and, yeah, a couple of things happened.

"You know, it's always sad and always unfair, as well. I think it's not a responsible way to behave," she said.

Last year Radwanska caused a stir at the Qatar Open by complaining about world number one Victoria Azarenka's on-court behaviour.

This time though, in the context of reports that sections of the Israeli crowd made noisy allegations about anti-Semitism in Poland, Radwanska's remarks had a far more sombre tinge."

It didn't mention any anti-Catholic slurs being uttered by the crowd (although presumably it could have come from a relatively small number), but mentioned them making "noisy allegations about anti-Semitism in Poland". That clearly has no place in a tennis match, although I wouldn't consider that so hateful. Also, in fairness to the crowd, after reading the YouTube comments those allegations don't seem entirely baseless.

If there were indeed anti-Catholic slurs hurled at the Poles, then that would be quite awful and justify stricter penalties being taken against the Israeli tennis organizers. If they can't control their fans and this were to repeat itself at future events, then I think they could be justified in taking away Israel's right to host them or at least forcing them to play their home ties in front of empty stadiums.

There were anti-Catholic slurs from the crowd, according to reports quoted on another thread, so their reaction to religious hatred was quite understandable.

Were there actual, objective 3rd-party links asserting that? I mean, more than just the blatantly anti-semitic OP's assertions? And precisely how many members of the crowd were involved? I'm turning up blanks in Google other than the link I posted, so I'm genuinely interested in verifying this.

"Please come on, Niezalezna.pl isn't a reliable source. Right-wing and Father Rydzyk media are openly anti-semitic and now Niezalezna is creating an international scandal and asking goverment reaction. I just can't. They have no source now they are make up some things like deleted YT videos with racist comments. All they have is: Według relacji internautów, którzy oglądali mecz, polskie tenisistki były lżone przez siedzących na trybunach kibiców. Meaning - "According to report of internet fans who watched a match, Polish players were offended by crowd in the stands." Like seriously?

Other Polish users - stop posting this crap and get serious.

Only thing I can believe in that happend is that there were some people that could scream "one more" after DF, or during a rally, between serves or sth like that. Nothing racist, only some unproper things tennis-wise, tennis etiquette. 2yrs ago Agnieszka and Klaudia Jans had nice, friendly press conference when they kindly explained that it's bothering for tennis players and ask to cheer for your team only. Maybe this time Aga just got ****ed because it happend again. That's it. Not in the world I would be reading more into this.

Such thing should never spice up relations between Polish and Israeli, they are far from perfect already so it's better not overreact and create drama out of nothing."

It was a deleted thread started by a Polish OP with anti-semetic overtones. I'm not sure he ever cited any links, but if he did, it may have just been to those dubious Polish sources mentioned in the quote I posted above.

Were there actual, objective 3rd-party links asserting that? I mean, more than just the blatantly anti-semitic OP's assertions? And precisely how many members of the crowd were involved? I'm turning up blanks in Google other than the link I posted, so I'm genuinely interested in verifying this.

Anything is possible, there'll always be a small number of people promoting hate and intolerance, unfortunately. I know right now in european football federations are cracking down on any confirmed incident of intolerance

I can't see any objective reporting in that thread only tendentious commentary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDNguy87

Were there actual, objective 3rd-party links asserting that? I mean, more than just the blatantly anti-semitic OP's assertions? And precisely how many members of the crowd were involved? I'm turning up blanks in Google other than the link I posted, so I'm genuinely interested in verifying this.

"Please come on, Niezalezna.pl isn't a reliable source. Right-wing and Father Rydzyk media are openly anti-semitic and now Niezalezna is creating an international scandal and asking goverment reaction. I just can't. They have no source now they are make up some things like deleted YT videos with racist comments. All they have is: Według relacji internautów, którzy oglądali mecz, polskie tenisistki były lżone przez siedzących na trybunach kibiców. Meaning - "According to report of internet fans who watched a match, Polish players were offended by crowd in the stands." Like seriously?

Other Polish users - stop posting this crap and get serious.

Only thing I can believe in that happend is that there were some people that could scream "one more" after DF, or during a rally, between serves or sth like that. Nothing racist, only some unproper things tennis-wise, tennis etiquette. 2yrs ago Agnieszka and Klaudia Jans had nice, friendly press conference when they kindly explained that it's bothering for tennis players and ask to cheer for your team only. Maybe this time Aga just got ****ed because it happend again. That's it. Not in the world I would be reading more into this.

Such thing should never spice up relations between Polish and Israeli, they are far from perfect already so it's better not overreact and create drama out of nothing."

I don't think you should slur other people and their threads when they are no longer there to be examined and s/he did cite reports, but this event has not been subject to much reporting of any kind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDNguy87

It was a deleted thread started by a Polish OP with anti-semetic overtones. I'm not sure he ever cited any links, but if he did, it may have just been to those dubious Polish sources mentioned in the quote I posted above.

I can't see any objective reporting in that thread only tendentious commentary.

But all you have supporting your assertion that the crowd made anti-Catholic remarks is tendentious commentary from that other thread. I'm not saying it definitely didn't happen, but it would be nice if you could show some objective, 3rd-party source confirming it before repeating baseless allegations from a clearly biased source (i.e: the other OP).

I can't see any objective reporting in that thread only tendentious commentary.

I could not even read one page of that thread, there was nothing in there except back and forth bickering.
One thing I know, and I said it before, that is just my opinion, a simple crowd cheering would not upset the whole team this way. If there is more to it than that, we'll find out

When Serbs and Croats play we get several hundred years of ethno-political hatred, and Polish and Israeli matches would appear to be no different and this one was in Israel so the crowd was Israeli.

If European history wars are to be avoided neutral territory would be advisable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volleyandfun

I could not even read one page of that thread, there was nothing in there except back and forth bickering.
One thing I know, and I said it before, that is just my opinion, a simple crowd cheering would not upset the whole team this way. If there is more to it than that, we'll find out

Even you seem to make it clear that ancient animosities of an ethno-religious kind were on the crowd's mind by the sources you've quoted, so you're being slightly disingenuous.

But there's quite a difference between yelling out that a player's country is anti-semitic as opposed to calling them a "Catholic b*tch". Neither have their place in a tennis match, but one is clearly far more hateful and worthy of punishment than the other. I have no doubt the crowd's conduct was obnoxious and crossed the line, but I'm only objecting to how you keep repeating the worst allegations made without any substantive evidence.